22. Baby Blue Shades
TWENTY-TWO
BABY BLUE SHADES
Halle
I’m not the type to bail on plans last minute. I’m especially not the type to convince the baseball coach the day before the team flies out to Arizona to let me come along and “be Mel’s assistant” for the weekend away series. All that being said, I am the type to run away from my problems instead of confronting them.
That’s why I sent Ruby, she’ll confront my problems for me.
This weekend went by really fast. It was a quick away series, only two games instead of the usual three. Now it’s Sunday evening and Mel and I are hanging out in our hotel room after our big dinner with the baseball boys celebrating their series win.
“Mel, I don’t know how you do this every week, I’m exhausted and it wasn’t even a full weekend.” I’m lying on my bed and scrolling on social media. Mel’s sitting at the desk on her computer editing some more pictures now that she actually has the time to do it.
“I don’t know, you kinda get used to it. I remember it being a little tiring at first, but now it’s just the norm.” She keeps her attention on her work as she says this.
The next few minutes are quiet as we keep on with our own things. This weekend was fun, it was nice to spend this time with Mel, see her in her element. And I’ve never been to an away series this far away before, so the travel experience has been fun. But a small (okay, a big) part of me wishes I would’ve gone with Tryhard on their tour. I know it’s only been a weekend, but I miss them. I miss Cade. No, Halle, stop thinking about Cade . You’re literally here in Arizona to forget about him .
I switch my attention from my thoughts back to my social media scroll. I’m filled with regret almost instantly as I see Cade’s most recent post fill my screen.
“Ugh,” I groan, but I can’t look away so I swipe through all of the pictures in the post. My jaw tightens in tandem with my chest.
“What’s going on?” I think she’s only asking to be nice because she keeps her attention on her editing.
“The girl from the garage is there with them,” I grit out. “And Ruby’s hugging her! They all look like they’re having so much fun.” I let my phone fall out of my hand onto the bed and groan some more into my pillow.
This catches Mel’s attention. “No way!” I hear her footsteps pad over to me before she flops down next to me and takes my phone to see it. I look up enough to see her zooming in on each photo. She looks at each hand placement and where everyone is in all the pictures. She abruptly stands up. “Let’s go to the pool. I’m pretty sure I overheard the guys talking about going for a swim tonight, it’ll be fun to just hang out with them since they’re done with their series and have a couple days off.”
Unable to leave my pity party, I remain unmoved on the bed.
Mel crouches down to be at eye level with me. “Come on, it’s spring break in Arizona! Let’s have some fun!” She grabs my hands and pulls me up from the bed.
I stalk over to my suitcase and rummage around for my swimsuit. My fingers find the yellow garments and I make my way to the bathroom to change. With the door closed, I’m taken aback by the girl staring back at me in the mirror. My eyes are a dull green today, as I’m sure they have been this whole weekend. My hair’s grown out a little bit, I see split ends everywhere, I’ll need to get a trim soon to get it all healthy again. I don’t see my usual smile lines around my mouth or the corners of my eyes, guess I haven’t been doing that a whole lot this weekend. I don’t see the confident, creative, ambitious person I’ve come to know in the last year. With my hands braced on the counter, my head drops beneath my shoulders.
“Come on, Halle. Snap out of it. You’re not passing the Bechdel Test . The last thing you need to be doing is stressing out about a guy three states away who couldn’t care less about what you’re doing.” I’m trying to encourage myself. After a moment, I lift my face and accidentally voice the thoughts that I wish would go away. “Even if you do really like him and you thought that maybe this was the chance you never got with him. That this time would be different with Cade.”
Ugh . I allow myself a few more minutes of grieving what could have been before changing into my swimsuit.
I put my shirt and shorts back on to cover up and grab a towel before opening the door. Mel’s already changed into her swimsuit too and is throwing a big T-shirt on over it.
“Ready?” Mel asks me, and when we lock eyes, concern fills her face and she walks over to me. “Sweetie, what’s going on?”
“I know I shouldn’t be this upset over some guy, but I am. I’m trying to not let it affect me or you or this week, but I can’t get him out of my head, Mel. I really like Cade, and I thought it could’ve been something this time.” My last sentence comes out as a whisper and I know I shouldn’t because she’s my best friend, but I feel so embarrassed admitting this to Mel.
Mel just does the most Mel thing ever and pulls me into a comforting hug. I hug her back and fight the tears that are threatening to spill over.
“Hal, I know how you feel about Cade. I would never judge you for it. This is how I’d feel if something happened between me and Abbott.” She’s the best friend I could ever ask for. I give her a final squeeze before letting go.
“You always know just what to say, thanks Mel. I love you more than you know.” I lightly chuckle and wipe away the stray tears.
“You are my favorite person on the planet. Hal, you’ve been there for me in every single high and every low and all the in betweens. I’ve wanted you and Cade to work out ever since I can remember. It’s breaking my heart seeing you like this.”
I give up on trying to wipe away my tears. “Yours and mine both.” A silent cough escapes in between my sniffles. “I guess I just thought that I’d be the one to beat the odds, ya know? I mean, Cade has always been this way with girls, and here I am thinking I was going to be the one to remedy him. But I’m just like the rest of them—heartbroken by an almost. And I really have no one to blame but myself.” I sit down on the bed, the scratchy hotel towel mimicking thorns prickling my skin.
She sits next to me and I let my head fall onto her shoulder as we sit in comfortable silence. This is the first time in days I’ve felt any sort of reprieve from my mind’s constant circling, thinking about what I could’ve done differently.
I mentally thank Mel for being my rock, for holding me up, for listening to me.
As if she heard, I feel a comforting squeeze on my leg.
After I don’t know how many minutes of sitting like this, I sniffle for the last time and decide that Cade doesn’t get to hold this kind of power over me—especially not from three states away.
I lift my head from her shoulder. “I’m ready for the pool whenever you are.” I stand up, towel in hand.
“Hal, we really don’t have to. We can have a fun girls night in and watch movies and order some food if you want.”
“No.” I shake my head. “We’re in Arizona, Mel, we have to take advantage of pool weather in March every chance we get.”
She gives me an are you sure? look.
“I’m sure.” I lightly smile at her. “If anything changes, I promise I’ll tell you.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
We make our way down to the pool and find some open chairs. It’s seven o’clock on a Sunday night in Arizona, but to our surprise, it’s just the baseball boys, and now me and Mel, on the pool deck.
“You guys got here just in time.” Abbott greets us from his chair right next to Mel’s.
“Oh, yeah?” Mel gives him a smirk .
“Oh, yeah.” Abbott winks back, and then cannonballs into the pool, splashing us both still in our clothes.
“Abbott!” We yell in unison. As mad as we want to be right now, that was perfect. We take off our cover up clothes and jump right into the water. We come up for air and look around for Abbott so we can splash him back—not that it would really matter, he’s already in the water.
Mel spots him and starts swimming over, and before I can follow suit, I hear a familiar voice, “Halle!”
I turn around and see Sean. In all my lamenting over the past hour, I completely forgot about him. I wipe the surprise from my face and smile at him.
“Hey.” I manage a small wave as he finds himself next to me. “Congrats on the series sweep this weekend.”
“Thanks. It was fun.” He pauses for a split second. “It was especially fun seeing you in the stands.”
He’s trying to flirt, and it’s almost working. He almost has me blushing. I almost reconsider opening up that door again.
Maybe it’s my fractured heart, or maybe it’s being in a totally different state that has me feeling like a different version of myself, because the question that’s been nagging at me for weeks spills out before I have the chance to stop it. “Why haven’t you talked to me since your game a couple weeks ago?”
He looks confused, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “What do you mean? I’ve seen you around at Pitch parties since then.”
“I’ve seen you too, but you haven’t talked to me.” I don’t know why I’m fighting this fight right now. I wanted him to stop talking to me, actually I wanted to stop talking to him. I left the decision up to him after that night, and if he really wanted something more, he should’ve said something before we found ourselves in a pool three states away.
“Sorry, Halle.” His face drops as he continues. “I just wasn’t sure that you really wanted to talk to me. I mean, I left without a word to you after the game when we had plans, and—” Sean stops his thought right in the middle before taking a breath and continuing. “I thought that you weren’t actually into me. It always seemed like your head was somewhere else—” he drops his eyes from mine “—or with someone else.” He chuckles before continuing. “Ya know, whenever I was at a Pitch party, I would look over at you and you were always looking at him. Or sometimes you and him were the only ones unaccounted for.” He shrugs his shoulders, still not meeting my eyes.
My heart drops. I know I was thinking about Cade a lot, but I didn’t know it was so obvious.
“It’s okay, Halle, you don’t have to say anything.” He looks away toward the guys on the other side of the pool, jumping and laughing and having a good time. A direct contrast to our conversation’s mood at this end of the pool.
“I’m sorry, Sean,” I offer, but he shrugs it off. To be fair, I wouldn’t want it if I were him either.
“Let’s not dwell on the past.” He looks behind me at the setting sun.
My mouth opens and closes a few times, trying to find the right things to say. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have led you on like that. That was really uncool of me and totally not fair to you.” I pause in an attempt to get my heart rate to slow down. “I'm not just saying this because you called me out on it. Sean, I’m really sorry.” I smile weakly, embarrassed that I lied and led him on.
“Thanks, Halle. I really appreciate it.” His smile in return is sweeter than I deserve. “Really, no hard feelings. I hope everything works out for you guys.”
A pang hits in my chest, and I’m reminded why I’m not with Tryhard on tour in the first place.
He looks around, seemingly remembering we’re in a pool with all his teammates. “We’re in Arizona, baseball’s done for the week, and it’s spring break. This pool isn’t going to swim itself.” He dives into the water and swims away. His head pops up to look back at me. “Gotta go play mermaids with the boys.”
I usually forget Sean’s a freshman at Hemlock, but the last part of this encounter was a good reminder to not date an 18-year old again.
The rest of the night was spent hanging out with my brother and Mel, and I feel a little more like myself after the emotional whiplash of the last week.